Saturday, January 5, 2008

Several years ago, I discovered Schaffenberger chocolate bars at a Sur La table Store. They were much more delicious than Godiva. Then a few years later I read about how the Sharffenberger company got started. I always remembered how one of the guys (There were 2 men who started the company in Berkely, CA. One was a doctor.) was a doctor until he was diagnosed with a type of leukemia. He quit his doctor job and just simply decided to do what he enjoyed doing..which involved cooking. He went to Europe on a trip and fell in love with chocolate. Here is a published story about the company, and I have given the source. It would be a fun thing to visit their factory in Berkely! By the way, Schaffenberger just expanded their market to include Target stores.

Changing your life can be rewarding, but it's never easy, even if your new life is making chocolates.

John Scharffenberger and Robert Steinberg are now enjoying the sweet smell of success. Their chocolate factory in Berkeley, Calif., has customers swooning: "This chocolate is especially wonderful," says one buyer.

Steinberg notes, "When I was diagnosed with this, I was told that I had a 10-year median life expectancy. So I had this very immediate sense of, of mortality."

Steinberg could have just accepted his fate. Instead, he says, "I was not going to make the illness the center of my life.

"I started doing a number of different things. Cooking had always been an interest of mine. I met more and more people in the food world, and one of them happened to start talking to me about chocolate in 1994."

John Scharffenberger had also been a patient of Dr. Steinberg. Together, they said: Let's build ourselves a chocolate factory!

Scharffenberger notes, "Our goals were light enough, pure enough, that if we had just made small amounts of yummy chocolate, I think Robert and I would be really happy."

Laughing, Scharffenberger agrees friends who watched them go through this thought they were going crazy.

"All my friends thought I should have stayed in the champagne business," he says.

But Steinberg notes, "You know, I never did think that people thought I was crazy."

Oh really? Perhaps Hillyard can refresh his memory.

"No way! No way," Hillyard says, "I mean, this is a pipe dream, right? This is a fantasy, a nice one." Was he being supportive? "Oh, go!" Hillyard says, "Right. I'll sell your candy!"

Laughing, Steinberg says he chooses to ignore that his friend thought he was crazy.

There's a lesson to this story, and it's a simple one.

Steinberg says, "I think the one thing is, you can't be afraid to fail."

Scharffenberger adds, "Failure was never an option. We've just tried to look at life and make one little aspect of life as good as it could possibly be - and that's chocolate."

Steinberg, however, is not cancer free. He still undergoes periodic chemo, but he's already survived over 15 years since the diagnosis. And what an incredible love for life he has -- both of them, really. Scharffen Berger chocolates are sold nationwide. There are two retail stores, including one right here in Manhattan.